Staff Profile

Career Summary

Biography

I have been engaged in research since early 2007, following the completion and award of an MA (Music) in 2006. My primary areas of research are: Music practices in the 19th century, Music and Society, Australian music, Social Justice and Gender studies, Music & technology. Currently, I am researching popular entertainment and the construction of identity in Newcastle, NSW. Recent publications in this field include: "Newcastle in the 1870s: audience identity, power and cultural ownership" in Crossroads: an Interdisciplinary journal, UQ. Another article on benefit concerts in the Newcastle mining townships is due to be published in Musicology Australia in 2014. Another strand of research has been into composers from nineteenth century Newcastle. In 2013 I presented "Forgotten Musicians of Newcastle" at a HASS RHD conference and created a piece of performance art entitled "Forgotten Composers of the Hunter Valley", which was performed at the Newcastle Conseratorium in December 2013. Other creative work has been shown in Hobart and Leeds ("Margery's Times: Margery Through the Looking Glass") and New York ("New Adventures of Mark Twain").

Languages

Fields of Research

Appointments

Collaboration

"Assessment in Music: An approach to aligning assessment with Threshold Learning Outcomes in the Creative and Performing Arts"

This research project was led by Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University from 2012-2014. As a team member, I was a contributor to discussions about assessment in music and was involved in determining Threshold Learning Outcomes in Music Studies at Tertiary level. In 2013 I gave a conference paper as co-author with Richard Vella, Chair of Music at University of Newcastle, "Embedding Creative and Critical thinking in Performance Studies - the Challenge". This is due to be published by Springer in 2014 as a book chapter

Teaching

Teaching keywords

Teaching expertise

Highlighted Publications

For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.

Year

Citation

Altmetrics

Link

2008

English HJ, Margery's Times: Margery Through the Looking Glass, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (2008) [J2]

Margerys Times presents an alternative mode of historical representation through sound, which, as John Shepherd states:brings the world to the listener, unlike vision, which stresses separation. This project combines sound art with an historical subject to represent a temporality (time and place) and poses the question: can a medium of sonic creativity mediate across time to create meaning and a sense of temporality through evoking memories and imaginings in the listener?
The subject of this work is the English mystic Margery Kempe (1373-c.1438). The musical soundscape draws on readings of texts in Middle and Modern English, recorded music and created sounds. Multi-tracking allows the composer to position these components to create meaning and then use recording software to manipulate the sounds within the sound mix. The time-based aspect of the soundscape engenders a sense of journey and narrative. Glimpses of events are created through overlay and spacing to construct the non-linear, dream-like experience of memory recall. This creates an experience of history that draws on original, authentic material, but utilises 21st technology to realise an output, thus embodying our times.
As a composition, it presents to historians an obscure subject in a new engaging way. Its alternative modality gives the listener a unique, embodied experience of a distant temporality and its nexus with our times. The work was commissioned by the ARC Network of Early European Research and presented at the symposium: Time and Temporalities in 2007, Hobart and then at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK in 2008.

Publications

For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.

Click on a category title below to expand the list of citations for that specific category.

Chapter (2 outputs)

Year

Citation

Altmetrics

Link

2015

Vella R, English H, 'Embedding Creative and Critical Thinking in Performance Studies - The Challenge', Assessment in Music Education: From Policy to Practice, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland 141-151 (2015)

English HJ, 'Musical Entertainment in Newcastle, New South Wales, in the 1870s: Audience, Identity, Power and Cultural Ownership', Crossroads: an interdisciplinary journal for the study of history, philosophy, religion and classics, VI 73-83 (2013) [C1]

Conference (2 outputs)

Year

Citation

Altmetrics

Link

2013

English HJ, 'Re-viewing history through sound - fact or fiction?', re-Visions: Proceedings of the New Zealand Musicological Society and the Musicological Society of Australia Joint Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand (2013) [E1]

2009

English HJ, Wye SQ, 'Popular musical entertainment in Newcastle 1876, focusing on the opening and early operation of the Victoria Theatre, Perkins Street', A World of Popular Entertainments Conference Proceedings, Callaghan, NSW (2009) [E3]

Creative Work (2 outputs)

English HJ, Margery's Times: Margery Through the Looking Glass, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (2008) [J2]

Margerys Times presents an alternative mode of historical representation through sound, which, as John Shepherd states:brings the world to the listener, unlike vision, which stresses separation. This project combines sound art with an historical subject to represent a temporality (time and place) and poses the question: can a medium of sonic creativity mediate across time to create meaning and a sense of temporality through evoking memories and imaginings in the listener?
The subject of this work is the English mystic Margery Kempe (1373-c.1438). The musical soundscape draws on readings of texts in Middle and Modern English, recorded music and created sounds. Multi-tracking allows the composer to position these components to create meaning and then use recording software to manipulate the sounds within the sound mix. The time-based aspect of the soundscape engenders a sense of journey and narrative. Glimpses of events are created through overlay and spacing to construct the non-linear, dream-like experience of memory recall. This creates an experience of history that draws on original, authentic material, but utilises 21st technology to realise an output, thus embodying our times.
As a composition, it presents to historians an obscure subject in a new engaging way. Its alternative modality gives the listener a unique, embodied experience of a distant temporality and its nexus with our times. The work was commissioned by the ARC Network of Early European Research and presented at the symposium: Time and Temporalities in 2007, Hobart and then at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK in 2008.

Music in the valley: identity, memory and reinvention in colonial Newcastle 1870-1879$3,750Funding Body: University of Newcastle

2010 (1 grants)

Musicological Society of Australia/New Zealand Musicological Society Conference, University of Otago, New Zealand, 2 - 4 December 2010$1,500Funding Body: University of Newcastle - Faculty of Education and Arts